109 thoughts on “I owe an apology”

Didn’t the Clintons plead poverty when they were moving to Chappequa? Something about their own, personal Santa helping them to finance it?

Living like that does separate you from the real experiences of the people. Hey, I grew up in a house without hot water or an indoor toilet (until we joined the rest of the country in 1978), and I wouldn’t even want to go camping if it involved living the way I used to live. It’s really hard to downgrade your lifestyle. The Clintons are only human.

There is is nothing wrong with making money and living a good life…depending on how that money is made. Those speaker fees are grease for access, as are financial favors.

What percentage of the money collected by the Clinton Foundation is spent on programs? Where does the rest of it go?

What a lame post, illogical and sophomoric. Why would anyone be surprised that a 2 term President and his wife have had beautiful homes? Furthermore, i don’t believe that they even owned one of those- I could be wrong but one is a rental on the Vineyard.

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OMG, this is too much! I laughed out loud.. Please, so because the Clinton’s became wealthy after 2 terms in the White House this is somehow bad???? This is America..Having success somehow means their bad people (“tailer trash”) and are no good to us poor poor citizens living in are normal 2500 sq feet houses….

Wow, there you go using Republican talking points about the Clinton’s.. You would get along just fine with my tea party co worker Grace as no Democrat can do anything good if their rich, Al Gore, the Clinton’s, Nancy Pelosi, Warren Buffet and the list goes on and on..

Good, keep the Hillary hits pieces like this coming as their good for a laugh..

Hillary also gave political help to Clinton Foundation donors. Paid access to political power. It’s the way things are done. She’s not Saint Hillary, she is politician (and human) Hillary. Again, nothing wrong with bettering your place in the world, depending on your method of getting there.

I still wasn’t impressed with her stint as SOS, which is why I can’t see myself coming around to support her. She isn’t doing herself any favors with some folks with her her Obama, Obama, Obama comments.

She may have more legal and ethical problems today (pesky emails, again) than with her lifestyle, which is part optics and part ethics. Again, she’s only human.

mud, not sure what ” the damage they did to rural America” you meant. last summer here’s cgi on rural america

Fading rural communities can thrive once again, if the government and the private sector can work together to harvest their potential, former President Bill Clinton and experts at the Clinton Global Initiative in Denver said Wednesday.

The proposal, which Clinton will officially announce Wednesday in Iowa, calls for increased investment in rural areas through a series of public-private partnerships that increase federal capital in rural areas.

“America’s rural communities lie at the heart of what makes this country great,” says Clinton’s white paper, provided to reporters. “The affordability of our food, the independence and sophistication of our energy supply, and the strength of our small communities all depend on a vibrant rural America. Despite their critical role in our economy, too many rural communities are not sharing in our nation’s economic gains.”

and here’s a blurb from a 1996 issues paper (see listing of specifics that follows this entry)

The President is helping rural Americans raise their standard of living by improving housing, by providing running water, and by rebuilding infrastructure in small towns across America. President Clinton is committed to ensuring that all Americans — regardless of where they live — have the opportunity to build better lives.

BlueD… the Obama, Obama, Obama comments are to court the black vote…. something Bernie isn’t doing a very good job of…

patd…. you took the words right out of my mouth… exactly what did “they” do to rural America? And MC since you’ve talked extensively about southern politics in the past, am I to assume you mean southern rural America? As I live in northern rural America and I don’t recall anything “they” did to us.

“When I left office, there were 43 million more Americans breathing air that met federal standards,” Clinton said. “Who can say a government should walk away from that?”

Clinton also cited the clean-up of more than 600 Superfund toxic waste sites, the creation of 19 national monuments and even the efforts for an early version of a carbon tax under his administration.

“You can protect our precious natural resources, and you promote the public health, and you can fight climate change” while still growing the economy and jobs, Clinton said. “In fact, from now on, that’s going to be the only way to have a sustainable economy.”

just asking out of sheer ignorance: what have the other candidates done or said they’d do for the environment in rural america, family farmers, rural health care, air and water quality and so on….? webb? mike? Bernie? jeb, ted, Donald and those other goper guys and gals?

I was born and raised in rural America. The folks there almost always voted republican. Family values, lower taxes, get government off our backs,etc,etc, yada,yada,yada.

After the votes were counted and the damage done they looked around like a lost child for the last Democrat left standing, in hopes that he or she would rescue their precious farm programs. Somehow a check from big bad government wasn’t so bad, as long as it was coming to them. They clung to their God, their guns and their Ag. subsidies.

Hillary did lawyer for Wal-Mart. The growth of superstores killed the really small towns that are the hub of farming communities. The local merchants couldn’t compete with the Wal-Mart 30 miles down the road.

And the superstores didn’t just drive local merchants out of business. NAFTA was pushed through, in part, to find cheaper labor over the border. That isn’t the only way superstores made themselves the only game in town. They fine vendors for violations which they say are to incentivize compliance with their supply chain requirements. However, these fines have grown over the years. Not just more rules and tighter restrictions, but fines being much more than the cost of goods in some cases. It’s not enough that they require huge rebates to allow you to sell product in their stores.

And yet, companies must sell to superstores to stay in business. How do they keep prices low? Cheap labor, cheap resources, and, bleeding their vendors. Non-compliance is the cash cow of most superstores.

blueid, perhaps if we consumers would have been loyal to our mom and pop shops and didn’t buy from the wally worlds and if we bought only american made, we might still have viable small towns. spread the blame to include the folks enabling them, us.

sorta same could be said about the u.s. insatiable appetite for illegal drugs coming from the cartels. might help if we grew our own, bought locally or wouldn’t buy it at all, then that big menace would go away too.

I look at what the Republican governments have done for the people of the state of South Carolina. By virtually every measure of social merit, whether it be rural education, men beating women, condition of roads, early school leavers, South Carolinians are in the pits. And we have more than a billion bucks in our rainy day fund sitting in the bank. It is shameful.

Oh, add teen pregnancies and suicides to the list, and think about my beautiful, bright, mentally ill granddaughter who sought mental healthcare. Eagerly accepting what was available. But, in the end, leaving me to find her corpse with a needle in its arm, detritus from a lethal dose of heroin–the ultimate cure for her pain.

Walmart didn’t kill the mom and pop store. They were on their way out long before Walmart. Walmart did kill Montgomery Ward and has brought Sears to their knees. And they did so by superior innovation in their warehouse and delivery systems. In turn Amazon is building on the innovation in supply lines and delivery and are putting the hurt on Walmart and other big box retail.

As to being a vendor at Walmart, They drive a hard bargain but then so does Costco. But they also have one of the best small business mentoring around. And also, for the entrepreneur vendor Walmart doesn’t do as Costco does , see a good selling new item in their stores, steal it and copy it even right down to a look alike label and packaging.

And why did the local merchants lose customers? Because superstores bought cheap goods, increasingly manufactured outside of the US.

That hurt manufacturing towns, too, so folks had even more incentive to buy cheaper (not better) goods, because they could afford less and less. Small merchants couldn’t compete.

Folks in some areas were lucky if they could get a job there; it was the only game in town. Then they spend their pay checks at their place of business. To paraphrase Tennessee Ernie Ford, they owed their souls to the company store.

When I was in college, I worked at the local community action center in my hometown. We made weekly trips to a couple of nearby towns in the county-funded van. These were primarily trips to take seniors to their doctors, but also shopping for things you couldn’t buy in our town. The only no-no was groceries. Some of the seniors would sneak a few things from the multi-department store that carried a bit of food. I thought it was horrible to tell seniors they couldn’t buy a little bit of food to stretch their social security checks, but now I understand what the town was trying to do. There are still two grocery stores there, but not much of anything else. A pharmacy, a floral shop, a donut shop. The rest of the stores from my childhood now sell antiques.

In small towns like mine, you couldn’t buy a winter coat. That’s what the Sears catalog was for; then we’d pick it up in the next town.

We had, somehow, a JC Penney store for about 3 years in the early 70s. It turned into a beer joint.

The Staples/Office Depot deal has been shut down repeatedly. The are trying to compete with Amazon. Amazon, while they also have non-compliance fines, they are extremely small compared to other. Like, you could pay them with the spare change under your couch cushions.

Yes, things have changed. You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. Some of these changes were made possible through political access.

Some of us, myself included, remember what a thrill it was when the sears roebuck catalog arrived. Once the various needed items had been purchased, children had the fun of folding the pages and turning them into doorstops.

To my mind, what it all comes down to is that for whatever flaws she might have, for intelligence, experience, and breadth of knowledge, Hillary Clinton is simply head and shoulders above every single candidate of any party vying for the job.

For more than three decades she has withstood every single rumor, accusation, scalding inquiry of the ugliest kind thrown at her by partisans willing to lie, cheat, and steal to make her look guilty.

If she can take all that and still hold her head up while sticking to her purpose, she will make a great President.

Talking about the Sears catalog and moms and pops is quaint… but this election is about the future. At this time the stock market is going crazy because of a slow down in China’s economy, Saudi Arabia’s manipulation of oil supplies, and Iranian oil’s recent arrival on the scene. The next president had better have a firm grip on how the world economy works and not just in NH, Iowa, and South Carolina.

I really hope the younger generation comes out to vote no matter who their chosen candidate is… just blaming who us oldies nominate ain’t going to cut it.

I loved the mom and pop businesses, and I am not any fan of Walmart, don’t go there unless I simply can’t find it anywhere else.

Jack is right. Walmart did not force the demise of the local stores and shops. Thirty years of wage and income stagnation and decline were the real culprits. Hard to blame consumers for flocking to the big box stores, when they are having to stretch every dollar a little further this year than they did last year and the year before that and……….

We have much the same here in AZ. We can’t fix a road or build a school, and we almost never miss a chance to throw people off public assistance. yet we have a fairly sizable rainy day fund. Fortunatly the courts have ordered that at least some of that money will have to be returned to the schools over the next ten years.

The folks around my neck of the woods have voted repeatedly and in large numbers for less of everything. Sadly they are geting just that.

“For more than three decades she has withstood every single rumor, accusation, scalding inquiry of the ugliest kind thrown at her by partisans willing to lie, cheat, and steal to make her look guilty.”

Jamie,

All of that because she plays a ‘man’s game’ better than the men. Always has.

I have forgotten my manners, hello MC. I had tried to post this earlier, but my net went down. Net worth of John Edwards. And MC, if you peruse the site you may find a few folks you have worked for at one time or another.

Blue, I am so happy you mention the Clinton Foundation as the University of Pittsburgh alums, Richard and Renee Goldman, have founded a venture with the Clinton Global Initiative to help US employees complete high school while working. Get that GED to further their career or education opportunities. I know, greed and more Clinton greed. Here is one press release regarding the venture. I graduated from Pitt in 1975. Very proud to be part of that community. When I lived in Denver, as part of a university program, I volunteered to mentor recent grads from Pitt who were relocating to Colorado. Not all programs are suspect and I try to resist the urge to condemn.

Jamie… really interesting article from politico on Sanders foreign policy… or should I say a lack of one. Yup… that’s what I’m reading everywhere… Bernie just wants to talk about the domestic economy. It’s as if he doesn’t understand that what’s happening internationally affects what’s happening on main street America nowadays.

OD… good to see you pop back up. Your last line put a smile on my face.

One thing is certain….the dems are always first…and we might be part of the exciting time that elects the first woman POTUS or we might elect the first Jewish POTUS. Either way? I am proud to vote with the dems.

One thing about this wonderful place and our fearless leader, Craig Crawford. Even when we disagree, we tend to keep it civil or at least sincerely apologize when we have let the rhetoric get ahead of our manners.

There are way too few places left where this is the norm. You really, really do not want to see my political twitter stream as some of the recommended physical actions would strain the expertise of an Olympic gymnast.

It is good to see so many of the former participants and I hope they will continue to contribute.

OD, I don’t think what we have now begins to approach the meanspiritidness of what we experienced eight years ago. I won’t forget you having to dodge cars while standing with your signs in the middle of the traffic lanes. Please don’t become disappointed in me, I don’t want to self-moderate, but I’ll pause before I push the launch button. 🙂

wall street journal: The Democratic National Committee and the three presidential campaigns have agreed to add four debates to the primary calendar, with one next week in New Hampshire, two Democratic aides said Saturday.

Tomorrow 1800-est SC Gamecock women 20-0 @ Texas-A&M ESPN-2. Win or lose, it should be a most exciting game. The Aggies have a really strange basketball court. It’s like they are gladiators the way it is set-up.

WEST DES MOINES
I went to hear Marco Rubio speak, for two important journalism reasons:

1. The event was near my hotel.
2. It was in a bar.

Rubio is a classic only-in-America story: The son of Cuban immigrants, he was elected to the U.S. Senate from Florida at the age of 12, and now, at age 14, he is running for president of the United States.

First, I am an unabashed flaming Liberal Progressive Democratic Party member. I am happy to read this discourse, it is refreshing. Having spent years reading and replying to all manner of crap, today’s posts bring a nice end to the day.

I did not bash HRC before and I will not in the future. The same with most Dem candidates or elected. I have serious disagreements with how Obama has done things (enough to be put into timeout on DailyKos at one point) but I will not bash him for being a Dem.

Any Dem in office is better than any Republican (with a few rare exceptions).

That elected congress people become wealthy once in office is something to look into. But, it is not a reason to not vote for them. Just as famous writers make more than anonymous blog post commentariat, one of the 535 most powerful people in the world is able to charge more for talking than any of us. Ask them how much they get for being on Meet the Press.

Will I support Dems HRC, O’Malley (former gov of the state where I live)? Will I support an Independent Bernie? I support Dems first. I hope Sanders gets all candidates to see his issues better, but he is not a Dem.

No, patd… we won’t go drive for about an hour at night looking for some place in Manchester just to see a debate. We will watch it from the comfort of our own home. We will get to see the pre-debate stuff and the after-debate stuff on MSNBC. Then we’ll go to bed instead of driving about an hour in the dark to get home.

I am glad they’ve decided to do more debates… the more, the better, IMO.

I am a registered independent. When I started working on elections as a ballot clerk I was a registered Democrat. When I got elected to do the job of registering people to vote here in NH, I switched to independent because I thought it was proper not to have my registration influence anything. Rick and I will be away on vacation in the northern part of our state on primary day. We will go next week to our town office and vote absentee. I will take a Democratic ballot… but I have decided not to switch back to independent. After many years I will now proudly remain a registered Democrat.

Sanders married his current wife, Jane, in May of 1988 and the next day left for their “romantic honeymoon” to Yaroslavl, in the then-Soviet Union. The trip was an official delegation from Burlington to cement the two cities’ sister-city relationship. “Trust me. It was a very strange honeymoon,” Sanders writes.

He also visited Cuba with Jane in 1989 and tried to meet with Fidel Castro, but it didn’t work out and he met with the mayor of Havana and other officials instead.

Sanders is proud of Burlington’s international diplomacy efforts. “Burlington had a foreign policy because, as progressives, we understood that we all live in one world,” he writes.

Have I been around too long? Marco Rubio strikes me as being an incredibly shallow young man. The only Republican I see as being worthy and competent of being president is Kasich. That is what I said months ago and I haven’t wavered.

Having been through the old section of Miami where the folks who left Cuba settled, I have nothing but respect for those individuals. They have the same values as the D.P.s who left Eastern Europe rather than be incorporated into the USSR. I don’t see that in Marco.

Hillary is my champion. If she doesn’t choose Kasich for a senior cabinet post, she’s a foolish puppy.

OD, nice reading you.. I gave another $25.. We will get Hillary in the White House..I made another 75 calls this week for Hillary for America.. Lots of enthusiastic people.. Despite the Clinton bashing from so-called Democrats we will prevail.. Keep your chin up always.. Your so very sincere, i like that..

On Sunday, a woman in the audience at Upper Iowa University posed the question this way:

“How do you propose to get your wishes pushed through?” she said. “How do you get Congress to agree?”

By now, Sanders is used to this line of questioning.

“Good. Excellent question,” he said. “It comes up all the time. And it should come up all the time.”

The answer, Sanders said, demands a new brand of American politics, in which politicians respond to the wishes of the masses, not the whims of the elite.

His self-described “political revolution” requires a national uprising, he said, in which millions of people stand up to demand fundamental change. He often points to other movements — the Civil Rights movement, women’s rights and gay rights —as blueprints for ushering in sweeping political change.

Hah! Spirited debate. I love it. In my view Bernie is an idea guy. Problem is, his ideas aren’t fleshed out that I can tell (mrs. P keeps asking how he plans to pay for them – we don’t after all have or will have a Dem House) and IMHO they go a step further than a center left electorate will go. I think hillary’s email problem is less than it appears. She was sharing emails with her staff, unlike Petraeus who was sharing secrets with his lover, who happened to be his biographer (or something like that ) while he was in charge of the US’ secrets. Hardly the same thing, and while Petraeus lost his job, he got off pretty light.

I agree with the Times. As far as a qualified candidate goes, we haven’t seen anyone like Hillary in, well, forever.

And Rubio? God help us! That guy is a nitwit. I listened to this charming little rant about how the US was so wonderful because it changed his family and their history. Ok big deal. The US immigration policies benefited his family, he got his, and now wants to turn it off for everybody else who needs it. What a great guy. What little I saw of the Republican debate the other night, Bush ate his lunch on immigration. Good. He’s an articulate puke who strikes me as a shallow thinker, comfortable with talking points.

Snow likely, mainly after midnight. Cloudy, with a low around 28. Blustery, with a northeast wind 6 to 16 mph, with gusts as high as 23 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches possible

This election could be the birth of a Trump-Sanders constituency
It’s time for the Washington elite to wake up and listen to what these voters are responding to.
……………………………………………………………….
There were initial outbursts similar to those that the United States and Western Europe are experiencing now — the populists and socialists in the United States, the socialist and Labour parties in Europe — but they didn’t cohere into a powerful challenge until the decades after World War I and the onset of the Great Depression.

When they did come together, however, the challenge took two very different forms. In the United States, the breakdown of the old order led to the triumph of the New Deal on the left. In Europe, it resulted in the rise of fascism.

So the breakup of a political-economic order can turn left or right, and which direction the revolt will take in the United States remains to be seen. What can be said is that the Trump and Sanders campaigns, taken together, could be harbingers of that revolt.

btw, mud, that “trailer trash” epithet harkens back to the peanut brigade put downs and the lbj country cuts the elites snickered about over their sherry at the harvard (or yale) club. a bit odd coming from the mountain sage, the political guru of all things rural.

I’ve sometimes referred to the trumpeting Mr. Trump as a sterling example of “Trailer Trash”. Some of the best people I’ve known lived in actual trailers. Moving the more generic epithet up a 100 stories and slapping gold plate all over it, doesn’t improve the garbage.

nytimes: Previous Clinton advertisements relied on a male narrator to tell Mrs. Clinton’s story. Now she does so herself. Through 11 video clips in 60 seconds, we watch Mrs. Clinton age, her hairstyles evolve, and her diction take on and then lose an Arkansas twang. But despite the passage of 37 years, she seems to be delivering the exact same speech on a single topic: children and families. It is powerful proof of an extensive record. Moreover, it is a sharp rebuke to those who marvel at how Senator Bernie Sanders has been saying the same thing throughout his career or suggest that Mrs. Clinton is more prone to adjusting her politics to fit the moment.

Sanders’ Supporters Ignore the Lessons of Obama
By Ruth Marcus
DES MOINES — The sobering reality of Barack Obama’s presidency has been the difficulty of achieving the change that he promised. The surprising development of the 2016 campaign is the degree to which a large segment of Democratic voters, at least in the early voting states, appear to have forgotten or rejected that lesson.
They seem willing to entrust their hopes of retaining the presidency to a candidate envisioning change far more radical than anything Obama ever dangled before them.http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/01/31/sanders_supporters_ignore_the_lessons_of_obama_129494.html

I first saw “Jewels” performed in part back in the late 60s in “Man Who Dances” documentary and still remember the incredible leg cramps that had him screaming backstage and then returning to still continue dancing

FWIW, this is something that might be above top secret. The recipient would be totally unaware unless the source and specific compartment of sub-classification were specified. Absent other information, the recipient is totally unaware of the sensitivity of the document:

Example: This morning, Brash called the doctor reporting that President Schmuck was so drunk the past couple of days that he was totally incapacitated by his gout.

Shooting and a stabbing broke out at a motorcycle show in Denver on Saturday afternoon, leaving one person dead and seven people injured, authorities said.
Two rival motorcycle clubs were “possibly” involved in the violence at the Colorado Motorcycle

Favorite quote from the article,

Bob Cook, who was running a booth for leather goods, told the Post he heard shots and saw people dive under tables. He didn’t know what caused the shooting but said that minutes later the scene returned to normal despite puddles of blood on the floor.

What Happens If Bernie Sanders Wins Iowa
By Nate Silver
None of that would necessarily matter. Iowa should be one of the half-dozen or so most favorable states in the country for Sanders; New Hampshire is one of the few that ranks even higher for him. If Sanders can’t win Iowa, he probably won’t be winning other relatively favorable states like Wisconsin, much less more challenging ones like Ohio and Florida. His ceiling wouldn’t be high enough to win the nomination unless something major4 changes.http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-happens-if-bernie-sanders-wins-iowa/

tony-of course, HA! Good for you with the calls- am about to jump back in myself.

pat- powerful video. the” love and kindness” that she has spoken of needs to come into her campaigning, advertising, etc.

So, i know this sounds really stupid but i can’t find a straight answer .could someone please clarify for me. . is sanders an official dem now, or an independent with an “agreement” with the party. his website lists him as an independent however wikipedia or someplace else says he became a dem when he started his pres. campaign and another says he has an agreement with the dem party .

back to the trailer trash issue, the only synonyms found so far are “white trash” and “poor white rurals”. interesting history found, however, on that term “white trash”

In 1854 Harriet Beecher Stowe, in her bestselling Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, devoted an entire chapter to “Poor White Trash,” explaining that the slave system produced “not only heathenish, degraded, miserable slaves, but it produces a class of white people who are, by universal admission, more heathenish, degraded, and miserable.” The degradation was due, Stowe argued, to the way plantation slavery locked up productive soil in the hands of a few large planters, leaving ordinary white people to struggle for subsistence. But there were other factors as well: “Without schools or churches, these miserable families grow up heathen on a Christian soil, in idleness, vice, dirt, and discomfort of all sorts. They are the pest of the neighborhood, the scoff and contempt or pity even of the slaves. The expressive phrase, so common in the mouths of the negroes, of ’poor white trash,’ says all for this luckless race of beings that can be said.”

Southern secessionists and proslavery apologists countered that it wasn’t the lack of access to good farmland, compulsory education, or religious influence that made poor white trash so worthy of contempt. In their view, the depravity of white trash sprung from the “tainted blood” that ran through their veins.

Stormy week ahead in Iowa and the weather is going to threatening, too. We all know how forecasting goes. But, it is also going to be a Super week with 50 shades of football. I hope the Broncos get out of Colorado before the storm. Go Broncos!!!

isn’t it rather odd? people grip about where a candidate is born,and i understand this is constitutional law, but still it is the circumstances into which one is born. No power over the past. However, when it comes to membership in a party (from which the candidate would like fairness, support) which is based on his actions in the now, He isn’t even or just became a dem. and i’m not hearing that really brought into question. The only clear answer I can find is that he was not a dem until 2015. i read articles and posts grumbling about her being coronated by the dnc. why would he and his supporters expect to enjoy the same treatment as hill after her life time of party loyalty. anyways, am thinking i might return to the party, and let them know too- as long as she is treated with the respect and loyalty she deserves.

jees- spent 20 minutes typing this and heard meet the press just answ my question in their intro- “not even a registered member of the democratic party”

I am with you OSH. All of these doctored and incorrect vids hitting woman hard…diminishing Planned Parenthood, Hillary, Huma, etc. I really cringe when I hear that Hillary’s actions as SOS make them believe she incompetent — a buy-in to repugs. She wasn’t Commander in Chief, but she was part of the situation room with Obama when Osama was killed. What about Myanmar? Her stint was a good one considering the volatility in an increasingly violent world.

Jack… thanks for that great article on Trump and Sanders you linked to on VOX.

patd… I am not an election expert. I know the rules pertaining to what happens in voting places in NH. The question you and OSH want answered needs to be asked of a party operative in the Democratic Party. I know nothing of rules pertaining to how someone becomes a candidate in either party.

OSH… I agree about Bernie’s expectations of what the Democratic Party is “supposed” to do for him. He wants party support… how about him supporting the party.

ps- susan sarandon can, as my father would say only when he was really, really angry and left me quaking, “go piss in a hat” any discussion from her regarding womens rights in the future will fall on my deaf ears.

As far as I know anybody can declare themselves to be a Democrat/ Republican . As to getting votes we don’t do one election but instead 50 separate elections each with their own rules. With the way the electoral college works is each State gets votes equal to their senate and house members. This gives the small states and rural areas a man per vote advantage.

one other thought we tend to create governing coalitions before the election where as many parliamentary system do so after the election

In Missouri you just register, the only time you declare party affiliation is in the primary where you tell the poll worker what ballot you want. So it often depends on which election you wanted to participate. When I lived in the Ozarks (republican cause Lincoln won the war) the primary tended to decide the election and It was Republican local and Democrat state wide( this has changed in the last 30 years) So it depended on who I wantd to see elected. A county official then I was a Republican for that election. If Governor , then I ask for the democrat ballot.

Jack

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